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Not a single man made a move as they exited the common room. He expelled a held breath. Now they just had to get up to the next level before the skirmish started behind them. He knew full well Weston and Des were about to move to the bar to block anyone that attempted to follow them up the stairs.
It didn’t take long. His boots set foot on the planks of the second level hallway just as a crash of glass echoed up the stairwell. A rain of blasphemies cut up through the floors. Bodies hit walls, shaking the building. A wailing scream.
Weston and Des were right on time, as usual.
Roe hurried to the door on his left and sank the key into the keyhole and turned it. He pushed the door open wide. Torrie stepped past the threshold and he grabbed her arm pulling her back out of the room. “No. Not in there.”
He spun around, going to the wall opposite the door. “We go through here. The door just unlocks this panel.”
Roe bent down onto his knees and pushed inward on a square section of oak wainscoting that lined the hallway. It flipped to the side, leaving a black hole in its wake. “In you go.”
Torrie stared at him, her forehead impossibly wrinkled. “Roe, you cannot think—”
“Do you trust me, Tor?”
Her mouth ajar, she nodded.
“Then get in there.”
With an incredulous glance, she dropped to her knees and crawled through the opening in the wall. Roe jumped back across the hallway, closing the door and sliding the key under the gap at the bottom. A diversion that would buy him at least a few minutes if anyone made it up the stairs and started searching the rooms for them.
He went to his knees and followed Torrie into the hidden room, kicking the wall panel closed behind him.
Pinpricks of light through the wall to the hallway, along with a shard of light that cut under the bottom of the false wall panel gave him enough light to see Torrie standing in front of him. Barrels were stacked on either side of them, two, three high in some places.
“What is this?” Her whispered voice cut through the stale air in the room.
“Where Kilmore keeps contraband.” Roe grabbed her shoulders and turned her so he could slide past her and get to the window.
Cracking open the old pane of glass, he popped his head out the window. The ladder attached to the side of the building was still in place and no one was yet in the alley. A sliver of time. “We need to get out of here—now.”
“Can’t we just hide in here?”
“No. I don’t have time to explain and I don’t know who is going to bust through that opening.”
“Kilmore would double cross you? He looked like he was your friend.”
“He is, but he’s still a smuggler. Who do you think moves barrels in and out of this room? It sure isn’t Kilmore—he stopped doing menial work long ago. Too many heads know of this room.”
“But why are we running? You just left your men.”
“I’m getting you to somewhere safe.”
“But they need you.”
“Yes, and I bloody well need you safe, so I’m getting you out of here. We need to run, Tor. And run fast.”
She moved to the window and he grabbed her arm to stop her. “Let me test it. You come down after me so I can hold you to the ladder from behind.”
“I’m lighter and I know how to climb a ladder—I should go first to test it.”
“Not going to argue it with you, Tor.”
Her sigh filled the dark air between them and Roe threw his leg out the window, easing his weight onto the top wooden rung. The wood creaked, but held. Kilmore needed to replace the bloody thing—this same ladder had been there for the past ten years.
He set his full weight on the rung and swung his other leg out the window. Down two steps, he stopped. “Crawl out in front of me.”
Torrie stuck one leg out, got footing on the top rung, then pulled her whole body out of the window.
